Contacting people as a penpal to begin with, even for ‘penpals dating’ (where you make it clearer that you are looking for potential dates) gives you the chance to get to know someone a little at first. Of course getting to know penpals online is not necessarily the same as getting to know people offline — for you will tend to see less of a rounded picture of the person, it is easier for people to hide things than it is offline, and so on. Nevertheless, the dating penpals approach to getting to know people online gives you time to weigh up their personality and to get a clearer idea of whether they might, in the end, be suitable for you.